Coaches wife confronts columnist in press box

Hell, every one of us -- I assume -- knows of e-mails (or snail mail in the old days) being sent to columnists that say "Stick to the facts and be objective; leave your opinions out of it."

 

Frank, I came into this thread with the viewpoint that Canzano had every right to blog about The Wicked Witch of the West. Especially since it was in a pressbox during one of the team's biggest wins in school history. But I think you've changed my mind. You've made some great points in this thread.

Either way, it's been a very interesting, informative debate.

 

Every word of this is correct. I see nothing journalistically unethical about a first-person description of a one-on-one encounter with an angry fan. Canzano is well within his rights to describe his version of events. If the Oregonian had chosen to write a news story about it, then yes, they would have been obligated to give the wife a chance to comment, and of course the story could not have been written by Canzano. But blogs are not news stories. It's true that not every reader may not get that distinction, but not every reader gets the difference between columns and news stories, either. That doesn't mean the distinction's not valid.

 

But it may be something we should take into account.

 

Do we take the lack of understanding between a column and a news story into account? Does a columnist tone down his/her opinion because some readers might not understand that he doesn't have to play it down the middle like a news story? No, we do our jobs with the understanding that different forums have different rules, we trust that most readers are intelligent enough to recognize the difference, and we try to explain it to the ones who don't.

 

Apparently, the Oregonian doesn't do a very good job of explaining what a "blog" is to its readers --- judging from those responses to the Belotti story anyway.
And my guess is most other newspapers don't do it very well either.

Personally, I believe the VAST majority of newspaper subscribers know the distinction between a column and a news article. There are some of course that just don't get it. Even with the mug shot below the headline and the words like "I" and "me" sprinkled in, they can't quite grasp the difference. But this is a small minority, in my opinion, and should have no impact on how we operate.

But when it comes to different rules for a "blog?" Hell, many of the columnist/bloggers at my web-intensive paper still don't quite understand the distinction between the two -- and a couple of them are actually pretty bright.

 

There's a lot of overthinking going on here.
Ms. Batshit J. Crazee, who happens to be the coach's wife, goes off in a press box full of reporters. This is a story. Period. The medium within which it comes out is of little importance.
Here's a tip for public figures -- everything is on the record. You want to throw a tantrum, do it privately.

 

With all due respect, Fenian, that's not the issue here. The debate, as I see it, is whether a blog -- whatever that is -- is subject to the same standards as a newspaper story or column.

I'd be interested in knowing, for example, whether Canzano would have considered writing a column about the incident for the newspaper had he not had a blog. My guess, or hope, is that he wouldn't have.

As for the newsworthiness of the incident, think about this for a second. Let's say you were describing this to your editors. What happened, really? Subject of a column goes ballistic in public. Is that a big deal, even in Oregon?

I'm not sure it was worth a blog entry, let alone one where the pompous columnist, again, has to get in the last word, not to mention a sermonette.

 

Indeed. The significance here is that newspapers are addressing low-end issues with blogs today, the type of issues which, frankly, would have been the realm of the National Enquirer or People magazine in past eras.

I don't think the Ms. Bellotti flap would have seen the light of day pre-blogs. And although some may think it's delicious copy, it's cheap copy. And I don't mean inexpensive.

 

I loved the "Do you have kids?" bullshit from Mrs. Coach.

I would have said, "Yes I do ma'am, and I hope to hell they aren't walking the streets at night when your son is driving around drunk, because I'd rather not attend any of my kids' funerals right now."

 

It would have been the lead column in any sports section I edited.

 

A-fucking-men.